Well, I guess I was wrong,
I just don’t belong,
But well, I’ve been there before.

Garth Brooks

This blahg is derived from my Maundy Thursday homily at Nampa College Church during Holy Week 2025.

Have you ever felt like you don’t . . . belong? Like you are completely out of place?

For me, that happens whenever I am at a dinner involving more than two forks.

I was at a conference for Christian higher educators that concluded with a banquet I had not known about, so I had not packed a suit jacket. Even in a shirt and tie, I felt underdressed and self-conscious. Then I sat down at my table—and maybe my memory is exaggerating, but I remember FIVE forks. I felt completely out of place.

I did have two things going for me. First, I saw this movie once about a big ship that sank where somebody explained that, in this situation, you work from the outside in. Second, I have been in the room where my family was watching Food Network often enough that I have seen people using a knife and fork “properly.” So I was I was able to figure out something approximating table etiquette—knife in right hand, fork in left, tines down, elbows in—and pretend I had learned manners at some point.

Where things got most strange for me was right after the MC prayed for the meal. He said “amen,” I reached for my napkin—and it was no longer on my plate. There was a waiter standing next to me unfolding it, and he dropped it into my lap. This is the part where, if my wife had been with me, I would have turned to her and asked, “What just happened?” Because—and blame it all on my roots—I had never heard of such a thing.

I tried to pour my own water, and the waiter practically hurdled the table to do it for me.

I came to realize that this man was eager to serve me well—and that I needed to let him. So I did, as I watched and figured out how all of this worked. But it made me really uncomfortable to be treated with such deference. It was a very good meal, but I did not feel like I belonged there. More than once I thought to myself, “man…what am I even doing here?”

Ruining Your Black Tie Affair

It makes me wonder about how out of place the disciples might have felt at the Last Supper. On the one hand they had been with Jesus for three years and they were pretty familiar with his manner of things. On the other hand—he’d been acting really weird lately. Especially all the talk about how he was going to die. He’d been saying stuff that since he and Peter and James and John had come down from that mountain.

Add to that all the insecurities they must have carried with them. A tax collector, a zealot, a bunch of smelly fisherman from the sticks. This was as unlikely a group of disciples as any Jewish rabbi had ever assembled. Andrew, who had introduced his brother to Jesus and might have felt a little bit overlooked ever since. Philip, who couldn’t imagine feeding 5000 people from their meager resources, wondering what test of faith he might get to fail next. Nathanael might have worried constantly that Jesus could read his innermost thoughts like a book, including the things he didn’t really want to talk about. James the Lesser—the name itself invites endless self-doubt.

At the places of honor—on his right, it would seem, John, practically a kid, a man barely old enough to be here. On his left, quite possibly, a chosen disciple who—for reasons we can only speculate about—had already determined to betray his master.

So when Jesus said to this group “I have earnestly—fervently!—desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” I think my immediate reaction might have been, “WHY?!”

Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips! Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man! And you’re talking about new covenants in your blood and it is kind of weirding me out! That’s the stuff of Father Abraham and smoking firepots and floating torches and animals cut in half, of Moses coming down the mountain with his face aglow and a stone tablet in each arm—and here I am with my own personal golden calves. Why here, why now, why me? What am I even doing here?!

And, again, oi with the “suffering” already, Lord!

Behold, right over there is Peter. Proud, loud, muleheaded Peter. He is ready to fight for Jesus. He’s packing tonight—he brought a sword with him into the Upper Room. Later, when Jesus will instruct each of them to sell his cloak and buy a sword—and explained why, so Isaiah’s prophecy be fulfilled that the Servant was to be “counted among the lawless”—it will fly over everyone’s heads, including Peter’s, that Jesus did not mean this as a compliment. “Look, Lord, we have two swords!” In only a couple hours Peter will try to take off a man’s head with one of those swords. He will be ready to kill for Jesus.

And bare hours after that, he will deny he even knows Jesus. Aren’t you one of them? “Woman, I don’t even know him!” And, in a sense, Peter will be more right than he will know. He does not really know Jesus. Not yet.

And the brothers, James and John. They had once asked Jesus if they could call down fire from heaven on a town that had not welcomed them properly. Jesus had called them the Sons of Thunder ever since. I imagine that amused him—though maybe not so much the brothers. And doesn’t it seem like it was just last week that they asked Jesus if they could sit at his right and left hands in his kingdom? And they had their mom ask for them because apparently they couldn’t muster the chutzpah to ask for themselves?

All the disciples had been mad at them for that—because each of them all thought “I deserve to be on the Lord’s right or left.” Do these guys still not know Jesus? That had not even been the first time they had had that argument! What are any of these guys even doing here?

Friends in Low Places

And wouldn’t you know it—they’re at it again! Jesus warned that one of them was about to betray him into the hands of those who would kill him, and it sent all the disciples into a panic. Eleven knew themselves so little that each thought it was something they might do by accident. They all began to ask “is it me,” which then led them to argue—again—which of them was the greatest. Fear, pride, and suspicion all bubbled to the surface and filled the Upper Room with contention.

In the midst of all this angst, Jesus stood.

To us footwashing can be strictly ceremonial, so I don’t want us to miss what a vital—but also menial—act of service this was.

What is Jesus even doing here?

This is Immanuel, God with us, emptying himself of all divine privilege, all rabbinic dignity, all human status, taking on the status and responsibilities of a servant, and the lowliest servant at that, to wash the feet of his disciples.

Belonging

Think of the times that you have felt out of place. Like you don’t belong. Sit with that for just a second.

Now—can I tell you what you are doing here?

You are here, because the God of all creation fervently desires that you be here.

And God’s desire for you is not based on cosmic ego. You aren’t here because God was lonely. You aren’t here because God is emotionally fragile and needs little minions to tell him how wonderful he is. God has enjoyed the perfect relationship of love between Father, Son, and Spirit from all eternity. You aren’t here because God lacked for love. You are here because you have been invited into the extravagant, generous overflow of the very love that characterizes everything God does and everything God is.

You were created out of the overflow of the Trinity’s love for one another, according to the Father’s will. You were redeemed and made perfect forever out of the overflow of the Trinity’s love for one another, made effective by the blood of Jesus. You are sanctified and being made holy out of the overflow of the Trinity’s love for one another, by the Spirit’s indwelling presence in you.

You are here because you are deeply loved.

You are here because you are welcome at this table—the table of the God who took on flesh, put on a towel, knelt at your feet, and washed you clean.

But that’s not all.

The God who loves and welcomes you out of the overflow of God’s love commands us, invites us, and empowers us to love one another as God does.

The fourth century church father Athanasius gives us a striking picture of the beauty of God’s love even amidst the barbarity of human cruelty. He asked why it was necessary for Jesus to die on a cross. Couldn’t he have just died peacefully in his sleep and still saved us? No, Athanasius insists, the cross was necessary because only in crucifixion would Christ’s arms be outstretched, one hand reaching to the Jews, the other to the Gentiles, to bring both together in God’s embrace.

You are welcome at this table, but this table is not only for you.

God desires that the overflow of love between Father, Son, and Spirit overflows in you—love for God and for everything and everyone God loves, love from all your heart and soul and mind and strength. God desires to so shape and so transform us that we serve one another, wash each other’s feet, pour each other’s water, unfold each other’s napkins, laugh with each other’s joys, weep with each other’s pain, lament with each other’s sorrow, pray and sing and act with each other out of the hope we have in Christ, so that a world starved for hope and real, life-giving love sees us and marvels as the Romans of the second century did: “Behold, see how the Christians love one another.

Maundy Thursday, the day of Holy Week commemorating the Last Supper, is so named because “maundy” is derived from the Latin for “command.” The command is found in John 13:34-35—

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

You are deeply loved. You are welcome at this table. And you are called to be agents of God’s love and welcome to those God invites to this table we gather around.

Photo credit: Mat Brown at Pexels